This was the pressure being applied. An unstoppable, inevitable threat, who would have been bad enough on her own, a handful more on the way I had zero idea how to deal with, and a red mark on the horizon with the ominous ‘Class SS’ label on it for later.

If it was just me and my skin on the line, I was pretty sure I could have dealt. As a kid with superhero parents, I had dealt with my Aunt Jess’s death—Fleur’s death—with some vivid fantasies about being a heroine and making a great sacrifice, often involving revenge in some capacity. Taking out Kaiser. Purity, who had done the flying artillery thing and had jousted with my family enough times to stick in my consciousness.

I’d moved past that, but with a perspective change in the wake of it. Not fantasizing about death, but… being okay with it. That hadn’t changed since: accepting that capes died and in an ideal world they died doing something just. I knew I’d rather go out in battle than end up in another hospital room for the rest of my life.

But these were civilians. People I’d brought into this fight with my words. These were people with lives, families, and actual live-into-old-age futures.

I was terrified for them. Enough that I didn’t feel brave, floating up here, fighting in a very different way than I was used to. The blood dripping down her axe-hand as capes tried to slow her down was more visceral to me than the bullet wound in my arm that ached even today, the gouges in my other arm, my sprained foot, and my missing fingernail.

It was all I could do to stop myself from pulling the trigger and keep pulling it until this thing overheated or broke down.

I waited, finger extended, watching, and trying to take in every detail I could.

Capes were pressing in now, using everything they had to get her while she was off balance. Skadi tore her way free of Gibbet’s creations, now reinforced with Capricorn’s stone. Lassos bound her while she was bent over, another crane slowly rose up to press against her neck, and capes clambered over her. Sveta was among them, not attacking so much as she supported others, helping them up.

We had capes from the corner worlds joining in, now. Semiramis’s faction. Little Midas.

Lung, apparently, was in Little Midas’s camp. He burned bright in the dark, but was only in the early stages of his transformation.

She moved, tearing free again, and I flinched, my finger touching the trigger without pulling it. Not the right moment.